


Kate

by somethingaboutallison



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Gay, M/M, RPF, Sad, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 10:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18009578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingaboutallison/pseuds/somethingaboutallison
Summary: “I prayed for you on nights when I didn’t even pray for myself.”Brian Firkus reflects on his relationship with Brian McCook. {rpf}





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is my first AO3 story! I’m so excited to be joining this beautiful community. I have written fanfiction before in different communities/fandoms, but this is my first fic in the drag queen fandom. This story is quite poetic/non-linear and also very emotional. It's written from the POV of Brian Firkus. I hope you like it! Also, part 2 is coming soon. :)
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This is purely fiction. All events are imagined and solely for entertainment value.

I watch Brian do everything, and we do everything together, but only for brief stretches that feel like fever dreams. For a few days, we’ll be attached. These periods of connection are dictated by Brian on days where he follows me around and we act like a couple for a few hours at a time. These brief realities seem to transcend all the rules of real life, these fleeting windows of time where Brian acts out some different universe onto me.

I start calling him Kate, a shortened and Americanized version of Katya. Brian is so many people all the time, and I invented the nickname Kate as an effort to create a person he could only be with me. He accepts the nickname, but it never garners the reaction I want it to. Somehow Brian, Katya, and Kate all still allude me, in the same room but worlds away.

My relationship with Brian follows no rules or conventions, similar to the way children play games, changing the rules to fit their advantage at every turn. Nothing about the way we interact is regulated. It feels like I experience Brian in a non-linear pattern, like he exists outside of time. Our arguments confuse me, our embraces sustain me, and I can never count on seeing either one coming.

Brian kisses me like it’s a joke. He kisses me in front of friends, strangers, cameras. That’s not where I want to kiss him. I’m always scared of the truth unraveling, of not playing along, of the depth of my desire becoming too obvious and ruining the punch line he’s set up. When he kisses me in crowded rooms, I keep my hands to myself. I go along with his act and resist the pulls of my imagination to _reach forward_ to the warmth of his skin.  

But Brian has shared sweeter moments with me. These I hang on to; these I let steep in my mind on nights when I’m cold and lonely. Brian is soft and rough at the same time, sharp and comfortable, brittle and gentle. When we’re alone, he lets _me_ kiss _him_ for a change. I’m able to touch him, to feel his stubble under my thumb. He wraps his fingers around my biceps and lets his hands fall down the sides of my body. We kiss in cars, elevators, airplane seats. Places where there’s never enough room for me to lean into him the way I want to. Never in our own beds, never intimate that way – we only make these memories in places we’ll never visit again. The way we kiss in private spaces ranges from friendly pecks to long, deep embraces that result in panting breaths and bite marks and flushed, red skin.

Once on a plane to Australia, he crawls into my lap with serious yet mischievous eyes. Wordlessly, his lips lock with mine and I find myself exhaling into his mouth, hands searching for the sturdiness of his slender hips to anchor me. He takes my bottom lip between his teeth and I shudder, surprised by his boldness and grateful for the dark, forgiving privacy of first class. His legs take root on either side of my lower half and he plants himself firmly in my lap. Feeling his weight pressing on my body sends me to another dimension. I’m struck with a strange realization that it’s _him_ – I imagine being with him so frequently that it’s almost hard to comprehend that this is real, that the weight between my hands is really his body. I pull away to catch my breath and he dives into the space above my shoulder, kissing at the nape of my neck. He separates his lips and I can feel his teeth as he presses down, leaving the faintest imprint of a bite mark.

“What’s all that about?” I murmur silently as he slows the pace and pauses.

“I just want you.”

He moves back to connect his lips with my collarbone, but I don’t want that. I want to look him in the eyes. I grab his wrist sharply and he freezes, blue-grey eyes wide with a simultaneous fullness and emptiness.

“You have me,” I breathe.

We kiss for hours, like kids in love, like teenagers. Just kissing him is more than I could ask for. Holding Brian will always be enough. He comes to rest with his forehead pressed against my cheek, our breathing in sync, and for a second, I feel like I belong with him.

Every time Brian kisses me this way, I can almost believe it. _Almost._ I suspend disbelief long enough to trust him when he holds me, to believe he won’t disappear unannounced at any given moment. But there’s always an underlying, one-sided understanding that this is all playing pretend.

Brian and I have never made love despite the apparent depth of our connection. We kiss until we both want to go further, but we never do. While Brian has undressed with me, it’s somehow always clear that Brian has never undressed _for_ me. He communicates this valley of difference in silent clues. He tells me in code that this is all kid stuff, all innocent exploration, all able to be left behind.

+

We sleep together only once. “No one ever sleeps with me,” he remarks as he nuzzles into my chest unprovoked. I don’t know what he meant by telling me that, or even if it’s true. As always, comedy hides the tide of my own emotions in that moment.

“That’s because you probably kill people in your sleep,” I deadpan.

“Will you keep me safe?” The tiniest murmur travels to my ear. No eye contact, no body language I can read. A shot in the dark. He does this sometimes - provokes honesty when he knows I’m scared. I touch his chin and tilt his face up to meet my eyes.

“I will.”

Brian kisses me first, with careful lips and cautious pace. He moves so slowly that I can feel his soft, shallow breaths on my skin. He pushes his body upwards to better reach my lips, resting a leg between mine and settling on top of me. I welcome the weight of his slim frame and he fits himself into my arms, my hands finding the sharp inward contour of his waist. He exhales and I breathe in, breathe _him_ in, coming to rest for just a moment with my lips still barely connected to his. He pushes down on me so softly; his mouth is soft and comfortable and his hips make such sweet contact with mine. I can feel my grip on his waist grow tight and I try to hold back, but God, _I dream of this man_ and it’s so hard to not take him right then and there. The pads of my fingers dig into the firm, bare skin of his back. I’ve seen Brian’s body so many times - he’s never shy about prancing around dressing rooms and hotels with minimal clothing. But it’s so different right now, the way his body is talking to me and no one else. There’s no show to put on, just the depth created by his skin and mine.

He pulls away abruptly and I’m scared that I’ve hurt him somehow. “I love you,” he breathes. His voice is steady, measured, informative, proper. I am terrified to say it back, because I know it wouldn’t mean the same thing. My _I love you_ s to Brian are tidal waves, tsunamis, natural disasters, storms that brew for months and bring wreckage to everything they touch. There’s nothing steady and measured about the way I love him. I stay silent; it’s all I can do.

He turns away from me to face the other side of the bed, and I mourn the loss of his warmth. What does it mean that he’s so easily able to give himself to me, then take it away?

In the morning, Brian is giddy and exuberant and does not let the mood dip into a romantic place. The slow breaths and softness of the previous night are gone. Again, I wonder how many versions of him I will have to learn and love before he can feel the way I do.

+

Brian and I have discussed the magic of tragicomedy. We both love when a performance is funny, up until a moment where it’s not. There’s disbelief when the audience feels this switch from lighthearted comedy to something deeper, darker, and more serious. It’s almost a breech of trust between the audience and the performer. The performer leads the audience down a cheery, brightly-lit road, then makes an abrupt turn down a dark alley.

Loving Brian feels that way all the time. Brian lives in duality - he’s always so many people at once. I theorized once in a rage that every time he takes a cigarette break, what he’s really doing is changing personalities, breaking character and building a new one, always ready to jump back into a social situation as someone new. Brian is always someone new. Brian is made of contradictions and change. Loving him is an exhausting game of catch-up where I fear that I’ve misinterpreted him at every turn.

Brian laughs so wildly with me, with his head back and his eyes shut and his mouth gaping. His lips pull straight up at the corners to reveal bright-white teeth that light up any room. His laugh is jarring, vibrant, sacred. When he howls at my jokes, his eyes crinkle and close, a deep map of smile lines and crow’s feet carving through his face. He leans hard into this laughter, kicking his legs and falling over breathlessly. I took this bright laughter to signify something unusual and unbreakable between us. Now, I fear that he laughs that way with everyone, and the tilt of his head had nothing to do with me and everything to do with himself.

Brian expresses love in unpredictable, unreadable waves. These periods of inundation and withdrawal are difficult to navigate – I unlearn and relearn him as he moves towards and away from me, different every time. I often wondered if his love for me remained steady below the surface, or of it surged and shrunk in the same unstable way he expressed it.

+

I think of all this as I watch him. He’s shaving in the crisp yellow light of a hotel bathroom, his mouth just ever so slightly agape. He’s propped up on his toes with laser-sharp focus on his reflection in the mirror. As he concentrates, he lets his bottom lip droop ever so slightly. Do I push out my bottom lip the same way when I shave? I have no way to know – my own body is just a constant study of Brian’s movements.

He finishes with the razor and moves to rinse his face, folding at the waist to splash water towards his skin over the sink. He looks up into the mirror as he does this. Brian always watches himself and I always watch him. I drink in his intimacies, the microscopic and invisible ways he moves. I feel that might bring me closest to him, and I never really considered why.

I’m struck by the clarity I’ve been missing. _Brian does not love me._ Brian doesn’t know how I brush my teeth, how I shave, how I drink water and how I hold a spoon between my lips. Brian has never once watched me the way I watch him. Brian has not ever tried to know me the way I’ve tried to know him. I suddenly know I am chasing something uncatchable, something that doesn’t exist for me. Every time Brian has told me he loves me, he was only buying time. Maybe he wasn’t lying outright, but he knew when he said it that he didn’t mean the same things I did.

I stand and walk towards him, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind. He almost smiles as he covers his hands over mine, pushing his back into my chest, fitting himself into my embrace. For all I know, he would’ve turned around and made love to me then. Maybe he would’ve held me the way I needed him to, kissed me the way I wanted. But that had been my hope for too long, and it was a chance I didn’t want to take anymore.

“I don’t think I’ll be back for a while,” I mutter into the crook of his neck. He turns to look at me, and suddenly we’re face to face. When I meet his eyes, his expression is concerned yet empty, like always. Brian senses that I’m serious, and he knows that he’s hurt me. He knows he’s been hurting me the whole time. He knows that the playing field has never been equal.

Our shortcoming is that we both deflect with comedy, in different ways. I laugh off the pain of needing him; he turns our kisses into punch lines until no one could see us as being anything but a joke. But Brian also has this secondary defense mechanism where he retracts entirely. This happens only occasionally, but this is one of those moments. Brian is an actor, a con artist, a _liar._ And he’s been at it long enough to know when he’s been caught.

He kisses my cheek – that kiss is the only time I’ve ever felt him apologize. His lips stay close to me for long enough that I feel him exhale; the heat from his breath makes the hairs behind my neck stand on end. I feel him almost say something, but he doesn’t.

I wanted Kate to love me. I wanted Brian to love me. I wanted him so badly that I created a new person for him to be. Kate doesn’t exist anymore; I never called him that again. After I left his hotel room that day, I never felt high on him again. I slowly started to dream of other people, and eventually to dream of myself.

The next time I saw him was across a crowded room. He was laughing crazily, with squinted eyes and bright teeth. It’s the same way that he laughed at my jokes during those long stretches of being together. In that moment, I knew for certain that he was never mine, not in the way I longed for him to be.

I pity myself for being broken enough to want him. Brian left me walking on shaky legs, nervously rounding corners, scared of ghosts, scared of surprises. Brian taught me how to touch the back of my throat with my tongue, how to swallow down everything I felt and laugh it off the way he always did. I don’t miss the feeling of words scraping my teeth as I held them in. I wish I could give voice to every moment where all I could do was stare at him, when that was all I could manage. I still carry that hurt with me, but it’s no longer at the forefront of my mind. But every once in a while, Brian’s voice still sings through the silence of my imagination, carrying deep, wild tones like some intoxicating summer breeze.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I really didn’t think I was going to make a second chapter of this, but here we are! This chapter was fueled by Out of the Woods by Taylor Swift and Come Talk to Me by Peter Gabriel.

Brian McCook’s POV

 

When Brian stops talking to me, it feels like the bottom falls out of my life. Nothing keeps me grounded without him. He disappears after sharing a hotel on the last night of our tour and I don’t see him again when we get back to Los Angeles. He doesn’t call or text me, and I’m scared to reach out to him. I’m scared that I’ve hurt him. Rather, I know I’ve hurt him, and I’m scared to know the depth of his pain.

No one calls me Kate anymore – the stupid nickname that I adored because only Brian used it. It felt like he was telling me a secret every time he said it, and it excited and paralyzed me. I loved being so close to him that we had special nicknames for each other, but it also scared me for so many reasons.

I knew about Brian’s feelings, and I felt the exact same way. I told him with my body more than with my words. I kissed him, held him, let him hold me. There were nights where all I wanted to do was take him to bed and make sweet love to him for hours and hours, over and over. On our way to Australia, my love for him was reaching a peak. I had been staring at him ever since we met at the airport to leave. His skin was tan and smooth and he kept smiling with such softness and grace. After hours of fantasizing, I finally kissed him, straddling his lap, not caring about anything else but getting my dose of his lips. He held me for the rest of the flight, and it felt so perfect and so real. The night he stayed with me in Boston, I wanted to fucking propose on the spot. He was so beautiful, strong, safe, funny – all the qualities I love most about him, wrapped up in a recently-more-muscular body. His toned arms felt like fucking heaven and I wanted nothing more than to be with him in every way I knew how to be with someone. But I knew we couldn’t. I knew _I_ couldn’t.

I know that on the surface, Brian and I are very different. He’s so wholesome and safe and real – I’m not like that at all. I kept the true depth of my love for him silent and hidden in an effort to do what was best. I know myself well enough to know I’m horrible at commitment, and I usually run from anything healthy or real. I have a tendency to disappear when things get serious, whereas Brian is much more of the marriage type. I never felt like I could live up to actually being with him. I’m a fucking disaster most days, which scares me. I always live with the fear of relapsing and going back to rehab. My demons seem to always be right around the corner, and this prevents me from staying in any one relationship for too long.

In the most overt but subtle ways I knew how, I broadcasted our relationship to the world. I kissed Brian on camera and talked about how much I wanted him, always making it into a joke to hide the depth behind my words. I kissed him while we were in drag because I felt like it was somehow safer. I spun my love for him into a love between Katya and Trixie because I didn’t want to scare him away. I wanted to make a world where I could love him without consequences or fear or hesitation. Katya was always willing to express the love that I wasn’t. And it worked – Trixie and Katya had magical chemistry, so captivated with one another. It added a strange layer to my love for Brian. It’s like I had almost experienced the feeling of being his partner, but not quite. We acted it out, playing the role of a couple as we moved from interview to press appearance to live show together, hand in hand. Trixie and Katya were clearly an item, and I tried my hardest to extend that status to my relationship with Brian. But I knew it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t real. But it felt so good to be with him that way. He’s the only person I’d want to spend my longest days with.

I want it to be real. I want Brian Michael Firkus to be the last person I kiss. Protecting him is the only goal I’ve ever had, and it’s all I can focus on.

I need to see him. I need to tell him.

+

I walk up the familiar steps to Brian’s front door and ring the bell. I’m nervous for all the possibilities. For all I know, he won’t even let me in. But after a pause that feels like forever, he opens the door. He looks confused and scared and I already want to cry.

“Hi,” I say stupidly, voice cracking. He stares back at me, his expression utterly unreadable.

“Hi,” he replies, his voice just above a whisper.

“Can I come in?” I ask softly. He nods microscopically and opens the door. I follow him in and we walk into the living room. I’m struck by all the memories I have of sharing this house with him all the times I visited or slept over. I swear when we were both in Los Angeles, I was hardly at my own place. Brian and I spent endless nights together in this house watching movies and holding each other. It feels scary to be back here under such different pretenses.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he states as he sits on the couch, and I can’t decipher what he means by telling me that.

I sit next to him on the couch and turn to face him. “I’ve missed you,” I reply softly, unsure of how he’ll react. He looks at me with hurt in his eyes.

“I made a choice,” he starts, “and it was hard. But I couldn’t be around you because you were leading me on. It was too much.”

He thought I lead him on? I guess it seemed that way. I really have no idea how to defend myself against anything he says, because he’s right. And I don’t want to defend myself. All I want is to listen and to apologize and for him to trust me again.

“You hurt me, Brian,” he whispers, and I can almost feel my heart snap in two. He looks down, then back at me.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” I croak. Tears burn in my eyes. “I was scared. I still am. I’m… a mess. You know I’m a fucking dumpster fire human with addictions and problems and I can’t hold onto things. I’m a temporary person and I just…you’re not temporary at all. You’re strong and stable and you have your life figured out, and I don’t deserve that.” As I speak, I realize that I have never told Brian any of this at all. In all our intimate time of sharing secrets, I had always been too scared to tell him how I actually felt. It’s no wonder he stopped talking to me.

“I know that, Brian,” he says. “I know about your addictions and your demons and your past and the way your mind works. And I _love_ you for all of it. I’m not scared.”

This stops me in my tracks. I never considered the full extent to which Brian knew everything about me and stayed anyways. He stayed by my side the first time I went through rehab. He was with me when I went through my absolute worst mental and physical health. He put up with my psychotic senseless behavior during withdrawal and the long periods of silence that went with it. This beautiful man before me has already seen my worst sides and it hasn’t been enough to terrify him yet. I swallow back tears and look up at him.

“Listen,” I start, suddenly aware of everything and feeling like I’m running out of time, “I don’t want to be difficult anymore. I don’t want you to have to chase me. I want to be waiting at home with dinner and I want to lay rose petals on our bed for when you come back. I want to be your husband and your wife and your partner in crime and I want to kiss you in front of everyone I know. I have no fucking idea how to be in love, but I’m in love with you. That much doesn’t change.” I draw a sharp breath. “I want you, for real, forever.”

A tear runs down Brian’s cheek. “You promise?” he asks so softly it makes me want to cry, too.

I grab both his hands and clasp them between mine. “Yes, Brian Michael Firkus, I promise.”

He looks at me for a moment before smiling so gently. He leans in to kiss me and I feel warm and whole. I’ve missed his lips more than I even realized. Brian is all soft skin and brown eyes and fullness and warmth. I feel at home with him. He kisses me and I feel a tear run down my cheek. This man is my home. I belong in him, with him, beside him, always.

Brian pulls away from the kiss, his chest rising and falling as he speaks. “Can we just…go really slow?” he requests softly. _So_ slowly, baby. All night, for days on end, for as long as it takes. That’s all I want.

"Yes, angel,” I manage, my hands gripping his waist for dear life. There’s no way in which I don’t want him, there’s no part of his body that I don’t want to hold and kiss and take inside me. There’s no way for me to be close enough to him, despite the fact that I’m straddling his lap, pushing my chest against his, feeling my weight settle across his thighs. His arms wrap around my waist and I hold his face between my hands.

“ _I love you, I love you, I love you…”_ I can’t help but tell him over and over, choking back sobs, whispering the promise again with my cheek pressed to his. I can feel my stubble scratch his soft, smooth skin.

“I love you,” he whispers in reply, his hands planted firmly around my waist. I feel so safe next to him and I need to be with him. I pull away from him just far enough to look him in the eye. His eyes were maybe the first thing that I loved about him physically – their soft, understanding nature always made me feel so safe.

“I want to know what I missed,” I say suddenly. Brian looks confused.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

I shift closer to him. “I want to know what I missed when we didn’t talk. I want to know what you’ve been thinking about and every little thing that’s happened to you while we were apart.” I tell him this because I _do_ – in an ideal world, there’s not a single secret between Brian and I.

He grins suddenly. “Fucking stalker,” he accuses jokingly as he kisses my jaw. He catches me off guard, making a joke at a moment where my brain is in such a serious place. I laugh, my mouth wide and my eyes scrunched shut. I realize that I haven’t _laughed_ since the last time we were happy together. I never laugh the way I do with Brian. No one is as quick-witted as he is, and no one is funnier. Our minds keep up with each other without words, which makes it so easy for us to run way too far with a joke. I laugh loosely and openly with him, grabbing desperately for his wrists as I cough and heave my chest. Our _souls_ match each other.

We take it slow, talking all night and becoming re-accustomed to each other’s’ presence. He tells me jokes and stories, and I laugh, cry, and hold him. He’s incredibly open with me, telling me everything that’s on his mind as our bodies stay intertwined. Being in his arms is second nature. Nothing about being with Brian feels forced or strange.

We talk about the break. I promise him that I was never with anyone else, and he assures that he didn’t cheat either. Why would I when I know damn well that nothing could compare to him? We talk until it grows late, and I’m conscious that I should give him some room to breathe.

“I can head out, if you’d like,” I offer. Taking it slow means space and time and easing back into each other.

“Okay,” he agrees. He’s never looked more gorgeous, and I can’t help but stare at him. His lips part in the softest smile, barely exposing his teeth that I love so much. His eyes are gentle and full, the deepest and most understanding shade of chocolate brown. I push my smile against his for only a moment before we both stand and walk over to the front door, hand in hand.

“Brian?” I whisper.

“Hmm?” he replies, eyes fixed on our intertwined fingers. I hesitate for just a second.

“I want you to be the last person I ever kiss.”

Brian moves to lock eyes with me. I watch a thousand emotions flash across his face – shock, admiration, and overwhelming love. He moves in and wraps his arms tight around me, holding me close enough that I can feel the tear that slips from his eye.

“I want that too,” he whispers with his nose pressed against my neck.

“I’ll see you soon,” I promise, my lips moving to press against his cheek. We stay connected for a moment, breathing in time, neither one of us ready to let go.

“Goodnight. Sweet dreams,” he offers so sweetly with a gentle smile. I feel warm and safe as I kiss his smile once again, unable to fight the urge every time.

“Sweet dreams,” I whisper as we part and I cross out of his front door.

In some ways, I could say that I have one addiction left. I’ve been lucky enough to survive and control my addictions to alcohol, coke, meth, and nicotine. But the way that I am with Brian felt like an addiction at some points – points where I had to restrain myself in order to keep him. Every time I wanted to pull him in and hold him down and tell him how I felt, it felt like the itch that nicotine has implanted under my skin. I could never get enough nicotine in my system, and even when I had a cigarette in my hand, I was already thinking about the next one. I needed Brian with that same fervor. I held onto every moment Brian gave me, wishing I had a photographic memory to capture every single time he’s ever smiled. Even when we were together, I could never get enough.

That’s the scary thing about drugs and addictions. They promise you the world, but they never give you anything. Instead, they only take. Brian is the opposite of that. Brian takes care of me in ways I never even imagined were possible. Whenever I took a smoke break at work, Brian would accompany me, making some offhanded joke about making sure I wasn’t going out to sell myself on the corner. But I knew what he was doing. He was keeping me safe, content to just sit or stand near me in conversation or silence as I smoked. He’d even let me kiss him with fresh smoke on my breath, even though he didn’t like the taste. I should’ve known then that our love was two-sided, that his love for me was just as boundless as mine for him. 

I could’ve told you years ago that Brian made me a better person. That much is an absolute given. He’s made me a more selfless person, a more inspired artist, and a funnier entertainer. But now, as we start or re-start together, I’m fueled by the knowledge that we get to grow _together._

I’m not afraid of anything. Brian and I have already been to hell and back together, and now we can finally be fearless in our love for each other. Once I’m home, I rush up to my room and grab my little black poetry notebook. I open to a blank page and scribble down one single line that seems to sum up how I’m feeling.

_LOVING YOU FEELS LIKE THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING INFINITE_

It’s true. Brian is infinitely funny, infinitely beautiful, infinitely intelligent, infinitely creative. We’ve already been through so much together and our relationship has been through so many phases and changes. I never want to stop being with him, no matter what else happens in the future. He’s the infinity I’ve chosen, the destiny I’ve fallen into. As I fall asleep, I picture his face, like I always do. Like I always will.


End file.
